


The Sound of His Wings

by TheNightling



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNightling/pseuds/TheNightling
Summary: Ovid once described Morpheus as having large, black wings.  So I decided to find an excuse to give Morpheus (of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman) wings.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	The Sound of His Wings

The Sound of his Wings

Morpheus was free. He was no longer Dream of The Endless. Death had set him free. He had been “Recreated” by the new aspect of Dream, the one that had once been known as Daniel Hall. Daniel had taken great care in the re-creation, to bring back something very old and yet to make of him something new…  
As an entity of dream he was practically a newborn though he still bore ten-thousand-years’ worth of memories, pain, pleasures, wonder, and experience.  
As long as Robert (Hob) Gadling lived, Morpheus would remain here in Hob’s dreams. Re-created as a dream entity he was now free- free from the burdens and obligations of who and what he had been. Free from his role of Dream of The Endless and finally he was truly able to do as he wished. He was content here on the shores of night. The perpetual eventide was a beautiful and serene landscape of autumnal colors, seeping into a deep twilight that melted into the lingering azure of waning daytime sky…  
Daniel had done a masterful job of creating the perpetual dusk that would be his eternity. Yes, Morpheus quite liked it here…  
The sand sparkled in the fading light. The faint footprints he left in his wake were quite deliberate and could just as easily have been avoided. Though he was no longer alive as Dream of The Endless it seemed that only now was he truly alive. It was a curious thing. Old fears had melted away. He had spent most of his life scared on some level, existentially scared. He was no longer scared. He had left his life behind but there was too much relief to grieve what had been. 

The smell of the salt sea air was soothing, as was the faint din of the hungry seagulls. He had always liked birds… It was strange, at first, to not be Dream of The Endless, anymore. As Dream of The Endless he was dead. He was no longer bound to the family of The Endless. One must be willing to change or die and he had managed to accomplish both. As Dream of The Endless he was dead but as a dream he was free…

It had been as masterfully done, almost on part, with tricks devised by Loki, himself, but how much of this outcome as intentional was hard to say.

Morpheus stood, barefoot, on the shore, allowing the waves to lap near his feet. The water was actually quite warm. The air was cool, with a pleasant breeze. The stylistically ragged, black, cloak he wore billowed behind him. 

Robert Gadling stepped beside Morpheus. Maybe he was a little worried he might somehow startle his friend. “You know, ever since you died… I dream about you more than I ever did before. You… Are dead, aren’t you?”  
“Yes, Hob Gadling, that life is over. Who I was… has died.”  
The undying human’s face scrunched as if he had just tasted something bitter. “I feel like you’re talking in riddles. I hate when you do that.”  
Morpheus turned his gaze to look at Robert Gadling. Morpheus’ eyes were still black, still bore the strange, star-like pupils in the black voids that passed for eyeballs. He could have looked like anything or anyone but this was how Robert Gadling knew him save for certain small details. Morpheus had never worn his royal robes or more flamboyant cloaks in front of Hob (Robert) but he wore them here and Hob Gadling seems perfectly incline to accept the eccentric fashion aesthetic.  
“What would you have me say? That I have chosen to exist here in your dreams because it as permanent as any alternative? I do not want to be reborn as a mortal. And I do not belong in any Silver City, nor would I relish going to Hell. There are few places that would have me and fewer still that I would wish to be.”  
“You’re… using me, my mind, my subconscious- my dreams… as your afterlife?”  
“Perhaps. Something like that.”  
Hob looked stunned.  
Morpheus gave him the tiniest trace of a smile, something Hob had only seen a few times in the past. “The dead often live in the dreams of those that- those that were close to them. Friends and family.”  
“That’s metaphor.”  
“In this place metaphor is the native tongue.”  
“Are you really here or this this just a dream?”  
“It is a dream. But... it is never just a dream.”  
“Stop it.” Robert said, sounding slightly strained. “Just be straight with me. Is this real or is it a dream?”  
“Can’t it be both?”  
Hob placed his hands in the pockets of the 1950s sweater that he was wearing. The night previously he had dreamt of wearing a 1960s Bohemian tunic. He had liked that better but he had previously worn both these things and now all that history, in fashion and culture, and language was a jumble in his own memories and dreams.  
Robert looked thoughtful and then smiled bitterly at his old friend. “You must have a lot of faith in me.”  
“Why do you say that?” Morpheus asked.  
“You think my mind has as much potential to endure as Heaven itself! You chose my mind to BE your Heaven!”  
“Your dreams…”  
“Same difference. You’re a dream. My dream.”  
The entity that was no longer Dream of The Endless nodded. “I am your dream.”  
“The point is as long as I exist, as long as I’m around to remember you, and even if I somehow don’t remember you- I’ll still dream of you- part of me will know you even if my conscious mind doesn’t. You’re a part of me now. By God’s bones, this is metaphor, isn’t it!? I mean, you’re dead.” He laughed bitterly. “You’re dead and you live on my dreams.”  
“That’s how these things are done, yes.”  
“But… This isn’t just a dream, is it? You’re really here, aren’t you? I mean sure, you’re dead but you’re also really here?” He sounded desperate, pained. “I hate dreaming about the dead. I’ll wake up with my face wet.” He meant he’d be crying. “And I’ll have to explain myself to Gwen…”  
Morpheus looked at him with genuine sympathy. “You would rather not dream of me?”  
“No. I mean… It hurts… If I had some proof you were really here… Some sign… it would make it a lot more bearable. I mean… I really don’t mind it. Meeting with you once a night instead of once a century- sure, I can do that. You were my only constant in eternity.”  
“Constant in eternity?” The term sounded charming to Morpheus.  
“Yeah. You know… Like the stars. No one ever really thinks the stars, individually, will last forever. They burn out. New ones are born but even though they change, new ones come along, old ones go away… They’re still there. They’re always there. There were stars millions of years ago and there are stars now. Before and after humanity there will be stars. Ever changing, yet ever constant. That’s what it means to live forever. You’ve got to be ever changing, you know?”  
“But ever constant…” Morpheus completed the sentiment.  
“Yeah. You were that constant. My rock in ocean of time. The thing I returned to and thought might always be there when nothing else was, when everything else felt petty, limited, and temporary- so damned ephemeral…” He shook his head. “And now you’re not…”  
Morpheus put a hand on Hob’s shoulder. “But you don’t need me to endure…”  
Robert shook his head. “I suppose I don’t…” He said feebly. “I’ve lost so many though… I wasn’t really expecting to lose you.”  
“Robert Gadling, I ask of you, will you be my constant in eternity? As ever changing yet as eternal as the stars?” It almost sounded like a marriage proposal and in a strange way it kind of was, only non-carnal.  
“You mean you want me to miss you forever…”  
“Don’t miss me. I am here.”

A slender, pale, white, hand reached out to be clasped. Robert understood the invitation and reached out to take his friend’s hand. The pale hand clasped Robert’s own hand and it felt so real. Robert felt the rush of wind as his friend’s tattered cloak fell back to reveal two large, raven-like wings, emerging from his old friend’s back, like they were unfurling out of nothingness. The wings unfurled like the sails of a nineteenth century schooner catching the wind in a gusty harbor.  
The wings almost seemed to glitter in the fading orange of dusk, as if they were covered in fine sparkling dust or sand. They were black, like raven feathers, but when the light caught them, Robert thought he could see the improbable presence of violet, purple, indigo, and blue smears of color, and other shades of hidden color hidden in a dark spectrum made from the little fibers of the feathers. How sublime these wings were.

Death, herself, was supposed to have had had magnificence, white, shimmering, incandescent, wings that only the dead could see. Morpheus had often heard the sound of her wings but he had only seen them once… 

These wings were a striking yet beautiful contrast to those wings of death and a sure sign that things had changed indeed. 

Robert Gadling felt his stomach lurch as he was tugged up into the cool air by his friend.  
“I’m not Lois Lane and you are not Superman!” Robert protested briefly, half-jokingly.  
Morpheus did not laugh. He did not seem to understand the joking reference. But he folded his arms around his friend, holding Robert to his chest as he flew over the lapping waves. The air was becoming colder as they flew higher. The air was thin. The dim, perpetual dusk, reflected on the water below as they climbed the air.  
“Where are we going?” Robert asked, as if flying was perfectly normal. And his friend having giant, bird-like, wings was also perfectly reasonable. Now he knew he had to just be dreaming. 

The wings flapped loudly and heavily. There was a subtle but very genuine smile on Morpheus’ face. Flight was nothing new to him, especially here in The Dreaming. But flight with bird-like wings of his own- that was still new. There was a symbolism in having wings. Wings meant freedom. For Lucifer the freedom had come in the loss of his wings and for Morpheus it had been the gaining. Wings meant freedom.  
Morpheus could hear the sound of his own wings. Rhythmically they flapped, heavily to catch the wind. To Morpheus this was as natural as a mortal’s pulse. He could feel Robert’s endless heartbeat against his chest. And with each pound of the heart, the wings flapped. Two souls in union.  
“This… This is nice…” Robert said with uncertainty as they flew, despite his awkward position, pinned against his friend’s chest

They were flying higher, and higher still, gaining an improbable altitude. Robert Gadling felt strangely safe here in his friend’s arms. And if not for the fact that he knew he was already dreaming, Robert felt that the strange calm washing over him could lull him to sleep… 

Down below, in a shifting zone, or Soft Place, where time and reality are distorted and the barrier between the waking world and The Dreaming is virtually non-existent, the poet Ovid looked up and saw Morpheus carrying his friend, and the heavy black wings against the moonlight. 

The sky was growing dark and the stars were spreading out before them. The ocean was so far below that Robert didn’t dare try to look down. His dead friend seemed unafraid. Of course not. He was dead. What did he have to be afraid of?  
A nebulae of pink and turquoise haze spread out before them with glittering, twinkling stars. It was beautiful.  
“Ever changing yet ever constant.” Morpheus whispered as Robert looked in wonder at the closeness of the stars. It seemed like he could reach out and catch them, like fireflies. They were no longer moving. They were hovering.  
“Yes.”  
“Live. Live eternally, Robert Gadling, for as long as The Universe allows it. Live forever and I shall live forever through you… as your dream.”  
“But you’re dead. This is just a dream.” The despair was threatening to return. Robert and his friend were now hovering in a space without gravity. The wings were still visible and unfurled but they were no longer flapping and Robert was able to pull free from Morpheus to float next to him in the void of space.  
Morpheus was patient and he looked thoughtful. “I already told you. It is never just a dream.”

Robert Gadling was starting to wake up. He could feel the bed sheets and the pillows under his head. He tried to stay inside the dream. “No, I don’t want to wake up.” He thought. “I want to stay here with you. If I wake up you’ll just be dead again.”  
“I will be here when you next dream. I will always be here so long as you dream. It’s all right, Robert Gadling. I won’t let you return to The Waking World to freshly opened wounds of grief and heartbreak just for my sake… You have given me so much… you don’t even know… This is the least I can give you… You may open your eyes now, my friend.”

Robert Gadling opened his eyes and sighed to keep himself from letting out a sob. Stupid, foolish dream. Just a dream…  
Robert turned his head toward the nightstand. There was a memory of a long ago dream in the nineteen nineties. It had been a dream of sharing a bottle of Chateau Lafitte 1828 with his friend, a very rare vintage that he thought no longer existed. They met in the dream and when Robert had woken the bottle was there on the nightstand, very real, and half-consumed. Now, irrationally, Robert half-expected a wine bottle but there was none…  
For a moment he was disappointed. It was just a dream after all. But then he saw something else… Something perhaps more exquisite than the wine… 

There, on the nightstand, was a large, black feather. It wasn’t a normal sized raven feather. No. This was much longer, improbably long. And it seemed to shimmer where the light touched it, as if it had been doused in specks of fine glittering sparkles. Though it was black the tiny fibrous aspects of the feather seemed to reflect in a smearing, the colors of violet, dark indigo, and hints of blue. It was an eerie effect, like how petrol makes the illusion of rainbows in dark rain puddles, in pavement. But this was no beautifully colored toxin.  
Robert sat up and took the feather in his hand. Faintly, dimly, in the back of his own mind, and also out loud he heard it. The sound of his wings…  
Robert clutched the feather close to his chest. “It’s never just a dream…”

It’s never just a dream.


End file.
